Heart of
the City: The Polis Bar in Athens

BY
ALEXIA AMVRAZI

POLIS is the kind of
place where you can go to write a short story or diary entry,
read your newspaper or have that big talk with your lover. And
if you go there with adrenaline-high friends for a quick beer
it's also suitable, but will not feel like any regular bar.
You'll probably end up discussing something very interesting
or coming up with really imaginative ideas. This place
mysteriously evokes a sense of emotional and intellectual
clarity. And it draws people who are clearly junkies of this
sensation. Although it is large and deep, and although it
plays mainly mainstream music, the charm of this
cafe-restaurant-bar is that it imitates the cosy atmosphere of
Prague-style cafes, where hedonistic thinkers can inhale
nicotine and exhale ideas.

concept

"The word Polis
originates from polites, people in the city centre. So
we made this place for those who live in the heart ofAthens
," says owner Sotiris Granitsiotis, whose wife is thespian
Evdokia Plati. The bar has been decorated in a somewhat
self-indulgent but simultaneously crowd-pleasing style - the
walls are plastered with original and chromatically soothing
(earth colours reign here) collages.

The collages are an
amalgamation of texts, newspaper tear-outs, ancient Greek
columns and statues and the faces of a great variety of
chiefly Greek theatrical, cinema and literary personalities -
"people who are my friends or are considered friends by
people."

The "scenery" as
Granitsiotis describes it, has been done by set-designer Dinos
Petrakos. The long, stool-lined bar dives into the room and is
crowned by a huge, rectangular mirror that reflects the large,
marble square outside Polis through its floor-to-ceiling glass
windows. But it sounds as if the quiet tones of the place are
destined to change this summer when there will be a
"refreshment of our memories" and a "more colourful" image
rehaul, with new faces dressing the sporadically wall-papered
walls.

crowd

A grand mixture of ages
but mostly intellectual or arty types visit here. But these
are mainly muted versions of fascinating people, rather than
the variety who boldly wear their art on their sleeve. When I
ask the owner whether this is what he wanted when he first
opened Polis three years ago, he says he never had a "target
group" as some bars do, and that his customers are "mostly
people who feel peacefully at home." He reveals that he
doesn't particularly wish to host people who are kakogousti
- who have bad taste, "especially in how they live their
life," or people who are mizeri - which basically
translates to "pathetic losers."

music and events

The musical playlist
varies throughout the day - there is no particular genre of
music but style changes from morning "cool and relaxing" to
afternoon "sentimental" to night "lively mainstream." Here too
the music is on some nights a little too loud for a
normal-level conversation in the late evening/night, an
unfortunately common attribute which can grow very tiring and
be detrimental in combination with drinking, when you have to
shout out a few basic words to get your point across rather
than elaborate more carefully. Polis also hosts parties and an
annual "big concert" such as last year's with the Chromata
Orchestra playing music by renowned composer Manos Hadjidakis
and this year's event starring composer Mikis
Theodorakis.

powder
your nose

Nothing
special here. The fun bit is walking to the bathroom along a
large white corridor currently dressed in an exhibit by
photographer George Rossidis of the National Theatre's latest
play, A Theatrical Performance. The male and female
bathrooms, each sporting the cheesy pink symbols of young
children of the respective sex taking a leak on their green
doors, have two simple cubicles and one sink. When I last
visit it there's toilet-paper strewn all over the ladies' loo
floor.

top
drink

Polis' top
drink is the margarita. This cocktail is perfectly refreshing
for these steamy hot summer days. You'll need:

Lots of
ice

Lemons (or
ideally, limes)

Tequila
gold

Cointreau

A blender
or shaker

Sea
salt

Daisies
(optional)

In a
blender, throw one shot of tequila and half a shot of
Cointreau, six to nine ice-cubes, juice of half a lemon (or
one-and-a-half limes). Blend until mixture is white. Rub
lemon-rind along the rim of the glass and, overturning glass,
twist onto a plate of sea-salt until rim is covered in salt.
Pour mixture into glass, plop in a slice of lemon and
strategically place a daisy (margarita in Greek). Makes
one. WARNING: this is a "moorish" drink but also a strong
one!

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